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Canonical Designer Demos Ubuntu Context-Aware UI
Blacklaw writes "Canonical's Christian Giordano has posted details of what he believes could be the future of user interface design in Ubuntu — a system that detects physical context. Designed to be paired with a webcam or other sensor system, the concept is that the computer is able to detect where a user is in proximity to the display along with an idea of roughly what he or she might be doing. Using this information, the operating system — in this case, Ubuntu Linux — can automatically make changes to the screen layout. For example, when the system detects that the user has leaned back in his or her chair, the system automatically makes the currently playing video full-screen. Lean forward again, and the video returns to its previous windowed mode."
So if the computer sees me with a box of tissues and some lube it will start up youporn?
Why does the summary not link the actual blog post at canonical.com instead of some ad-encumbered summary?
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
Another guess and pray system. Please don't. or at least make it optional (not that I use ubuntu, but)... Guess and pray system are often more of an irritation that usable.
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
... that yells "Pay attention!" every time it detects my eyes focusing on my television rather than its monitor!
So now the computer starts looking at me, instead of just me looking at the computer?
Interesting. But sounds a bit scary too.
So if I dangle my Special Purpose in front of my webcam, will it boot me into Damn Small Linux?
A good UI need to be consistent and predictable. When software tries to second guess what I want, glares at MS Word, it tends to piss me off instead.
And no, I don't want a video to full screen when I lean back or audio to mute when I switch app or whatever they think of next.
I always feel like... Ubuntu's watching me!
Someone needs to contact Google, they'll provide a shitload of funding for something like this, as long as they can get some of the images to run through some sort of facial expression analysis.
Not only will they know the sites you are visiting, but they'll get an idea of how interested you are in each individual product you see, and whether you glance at their ads.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
"...I'm afraid i can't let you do that, Dave..."
~men are from earth. women are from earth. deal with it.~
Now I can just start jerking off and it'll show me porn, instead of me having to find the porn first.
Thanks, auto-detect camera.
Lots of naysayers already.. this will suck as much as the first round of "tablet" laptops, like the thinkpad x60, et cetera. But you have to let the pioneers forge ahead. Let them do that, they will enjoy being at the forefront of development without you.
There's all sorts of sensors. And with something like a SerIO, you can just plug analog sensors into your perl/python/ruby/php/bash scripts. For instance, I believe I could take a capacitance sensor, hide it under the wood in my desk, run that into the SerIO (or I mean, if I was an engineer I could do it myself, but I am not, so the SerIO is my crutch), and then I could have my computer know when my hands are laying on the desk.
I could put a thermal sensor in my chair, so my butt triggers it. I could put motion sensors in the walls. I could put humidity sensors in my beer-hat, and it could tell me when to stop drinking so much booze.
There's so many neat ideas out there that haven't really been done yet. Well, I'm sure they've been done by shy introverts, brilliant kids that don't feel like sharing with the dummies. Heck I bet a ton are reading this very story and going "PSSSSSSSsh so?" Not as many as the armchair engineers going "PSshh stoopid idea", but they are still here too.
This isn't about getting it right. This is about playing. Don't critique the child playing with blocks.
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
... like playing sounds from Youtube/Flash on Firefox and Rythmbox at the same time, without having to wait 5 Minutes after FF closes, for PulseAudio to reinitialize or whatever, to be able to hear Rythmbox or VLC sound.
It's this kind of crap that's getting us no where and still has Apple being a viable alternative for productive workers despite their cheapest 13" Laptop currently being twice as expensive than a 17" Dell Vostro running Ubuntu. And despite Apple moving into MS-Borg territory very fast with content distribution lock-in and all that.
I thought I was going to switch to Linux entirely this year, now that I don't play Windows Games anymore and currently don't develop Flash for a living and the newest Mac Mini suddenly costs upwards of 800 Euros. But it's crap like this that still has me fiddling with fstab IN FUCKING 2010(!!) when I want to mount my daughters Cellphones MicroSD Card and then still being unable to mount the damn thing rw, as any other sane OS would do.
John-Jesus H.B Christ, could we please try to get shit done, like, for instance, building a vialbe AD clone or something before tracking faces with some obscure library that only 10 people know how to compile and has absolutely no practical application what-so-ever? No matter how much money Shuttleworth has, he doesn't have enough to burn it on something like this I'd suppose. No?
It's not that I wouldn't like to help, but, honestly, there is so much work to be done, I don't know where to start and sh*t like the stuff mentioned in TFA isn't very encouraging to have me join in.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Don't mind him, Mikey has a long history of mental illness, evidenced by this thread. Being a rabidly violent gun nut is one thing, but feces and bestiality is in a whole other league.
"For example, when the system detects that the user has leaned back in his or her chair, the system automatically makes the currently playing video full-screen. Lean forward again, and the video returns to its previous windowed mode." Does it also provide a barf bag in this sea-sickness inducing mode?
My web domain.
I'd be happy if, on a multi-display setup, it could tell which screen I'm looking at and direct focus accordingly.
I'm fed up with pressing Cmd-W to close the top window, only to find out that the focus was on the top window on the other screen.
Would still need to tell the difference between "glancing at screen 2 to check something" and "actively focusing on screen 2", of course...
Never mind Spamassassin. When's Spammerassassin coming out?
Why does the summary not link the actual blog post at canonical.com instead of some ad-encumbered summary?
Summaries have three purposes. First, a good executive summary adds context that may not have been in the article. Second, a good executive summary gets the point across so that readers don't get attacked by a tl;dr. Third, a well-known online encyclopedia is likely to care more about a press release if the mainstream news media have reported on it.
Yawn. I can send my customers to buy a copy of Windows 7 only to find some of their existing hardware doesn't work with it. Yet the probability is high that it will work with Linux. When Vista had much publicized driver issues, all you guys were saying, "It's not MS's fault, it's the hardware manufacturers." The troll would be so much more effective if you stay consistent and a little less obvious. Another way to not be perceived as a troll is quit pretending that the internet doesn't exist on a troll of an internet forum. Two trips to the B&M indeed.